A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

by Julian Barnes

But ignoring the bad things makes you end up believing that bad things never happen. You are always surprised by them. It surprises you that guns kill, that money corrupts, that snow falls in winter. Such naivety can be charming; alas, it can also be perilous.

Everything is connected, even the parts we don’t like, especially the parts we don’t like.

how rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves. We are all lost at sea, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us.

‘After a while, getting what you want all the time is very close to not getting what you want all the time.’